Better Pay Key To Qualified Teachers

July 12, 1987

The nation`s largest teachers union claims there is a shortage of qualified school teachers. But Emily Feistriter, director of the private National Center for Education Information, claims just the opposite.

The differences of opinion surfaced last week at the National Education Association`s convention in Los Agneles.

The truth probably is somewhere in between, with teachers flocking to the highest paying jobs and avoiding school districts that fall behind in pay scales.

The disparity in salaries is posing an educational dilemma throughout the United States. In areas where teaching positions go unfilled or are filled with unqualified instructors, the quality of teaching declines, class sizes increase and students are shortchanged.

``When our schools don`t have the number of teachers they need, they respond by cutting corners,`` said Keith Geiger, vice president of the National Education Association.

Teaching has fallen on bad times in the United States. Sadly, the decline has had much to do with the value society places on ``women`s work.``

Although once traditionally a male profession, teaching was one of the first professions opened to women and today, at the public school level, it is female-dominated. The transition happened slowly, along with an almost imperceptible societal agreement that a woman`s occupation was not nearly as important as the jobs that attracted men.

As a result, salaries fell behind the traditional value society placed on the teaching profession and behind wages for other, comparable jobs.

In high-growth areas such as South Florida, it is critical that school boards set competitive teacher salaries. Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties have begun to do just that, offering more than $20,000 to starting teachers, the highest in the state. Still, Dade expects to have a 14.9 percent teacher vacanacy rate next school year; Broward, 10 percent and Palm Beach County, 2.5 percent.

Fortunately, a profession that was casually denigrated because of sexist and outmoded economic views appears to be making a comeback. More college students are seeking education degrees, and student test scores that slid in the 1970s are improving because of a new public commitment to quality education.

The commitment of new state and local tax dollars to improving teacher salaries must continue if the nation is to have a public education system that will prepare the children for a productive and happy future.